2009 Saw Record Decline in Foundation Giving

Several factors helped to moderate the overall decline in 2009 foundation giving. Principal among them were the decision of a significant number of funders to reduce their operating expenses and/or draw upon their endowments to shore up their giving during the crisis; increased giving by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and other grantmakers; continuing gifts and bequests from donors into new and existing foundations; and the practice of asset-averaging by some foundations, which reduces the impact on giving of year-to-year fluctuations in asset values.

Source: The Foundation Center

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Census Bureau Reports Nearly 6 in 10 Advanced Degree Holders Age 25-29 Are Women

The tabulations, Educational Attainment in the United States: 2009, showed that among people in the 25-29 age group, 9 percent of women and 6 percent of men held either a master’s, professional (such as law or medical) or doctoral degree. This holds true for white, black and Hispanic women. Among Asian men and women of this age group, there was no statistical difference.

The data also demonstrate the extent to which having such a degree pays off: average earnings in 2008 totaled $83,144 for those with an advanced degree, compared with $58,613 for those with a bachelor’s degree only. People whose highest level of attainment was a high school diploma had average earnings of $31,283.

Also included are data on the highest level of education achieved by a wide range of demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, including age, sex, race, Hispanic origin, marital status, household relationship, citizenship, nativity and year of entry. Historical tables provide data on mean earnings by attainment level, sex, race and Hispanic origin with data back to 1975, and tables on attainment levels back to 1940.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Link to download data tables | Download pdf Fact Sheet

Racial/Ethnic Differences in Perceived Access, Environmental Barriers to Use, and Use of Community Parks

Abstract:

Introduction
Community parks provide places for people to be physically active. Our objective was to determine how access to, barriers to use of, and use of community parks differ by race/ethnicity.

Methods
Analyses are based on a cross-sectional national sample of adults (N = 5,157) participating in the 2006 HealthStyles mail survey. Community parks were defined as outdoor public areas within 10 miles or a 20-minute drive from where a person lives that include walking/bike paths, nature preserves, playgrounds, beaches, lakes, rivers, or similar places.

Results
Overall, 12% of respondents reported not having a community park. Among those with a community park, 14% reported personal safety concerns and 14% reported inadequate or poorly maintained facilities as barriers to park use. Race/ethnicity was not associated with park access; however, Hispanics and non-Hispanic blacks were more likely than non-Hispanic whites to report barriers. Among those with access to a community park, 83% reported any park use in the previous year and, of these, 67% reported an active visit. Odds of any park use did not differ significantly by race/ethnicity. Odds of an active visit were significantly lower in non-Hispanic blacks than whites (odds ratio, 0.67) but did not significantly differ between Hispanics and non-Hispanic whites.

Conclusions
Parks are valuable community resources to all racial/ethnic groups. To promote and increase community park use, it is important to be aware that parks are used differently by different racial/ethnic groups and that barriers may differentially influence park use.

Source: Prev Chronic Dis 2010;7(3). http://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2010/
may/09_0150.htm. Accessed [date].

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The Loser's Curse: Overconfidence vs. Market Efficiency in the National Football League Draft

Abstract:

A question of increasing interest to researchers in a variety of fields is whether the biases found in judgment and decision making research remain present in contexts in which experienced participants face strong economic incentives. To investigate this question, we analyze the decision making of National Football League teams during their annual player draft. This is a domain in which monetary stakes are exceedingly high and the opportunities for learning are rich. It is also a domain in which multiple psychological factors suggest teams may overvalue the chance to pick early in the draft. Using archival data on draft-day trades, player performance and compensation, we compare the market value of draft picks with the surplus value to teams provided by the drafted players. We find that top draft picks are overvalued in a manner that is inconsistent with rational expectations and efficient markets and consistent with psychological research.

Authors : Richard Thaler (CASBS Fellow 1998) and Cade Massey
Source: Social Science Resource Network (SSRN)

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NIH-led Interagency Group Identifies Research Needs to Study Climate Change and Human Health Impacts

...highlights 11 key categories of diseases and other health consequences that are occurring or will occur due to climate change. The report, A Human Health Perspective on Climate Change, provides a starting point for coordination of federal research to better understand climate’s impact on human health. The recommendations of the working group include research to identify who will be most vulnerable, and what efforts will be most beneficial.

The report also examines a number of cross-cutting issues for federal research in this area, including susceptible, vulnerable, and displaced populations; public health and health care infrastructure; capacities and skills needed; and communication and education efforts.

Source: National Institutes of Health

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Americans Remain Divided on Health Reform But Are Confused About The Law And How And When It Will Affect Them

The first Kaiser Health Tracking Poll fielded since the passage of health reform last month finds that 8 in 10 Americans know that President Obama signed the legislation into law. But 55 percent say they are confused about the law and more than half (56%) say they don’t yet have enough information to understand how it will affect them personally.

The poll finds that the public supports many of the provisions of health reform that are set to be implemented in the short term. When asked about 11 specific provisions scheduled to take effect this year, in each case a majority of Americans viewed them favorably, often with bipartisan support.

Still, the public remains divided on the law overall, with 46 percent viewing it favorably, 40 percent unfavorably and 14 percent undecided. Similarly, 31 percent of Americans say they expect personally to be better off because of the law, while 32 percent say they will be worse off and 30 percent say they don’t expect to be affected.

Source: Kaiser Family Foundation

Download full pdf publication findings | Download Chartpack | Download topline questionnaire | Link to KFF

Reauthorizing No Child Left Behind: Facts and Recommendations

This report synthesizes findings and draws lessons about the implementation and results of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) as reflected primarily in two longitudinal studies funded by the U.S. Department of Education. Progress to date suggests that NCLB's ambitious goal of having 100 percent of U.S. students proficient in reading and mathematics by 2014 will not be met. In addition, the flexibility provided to states by the law has resulted in the establishment of a different accountability system in every state, each with different academic standards, levels of student proficiency, and teacher requirements. Parents have not responded in great numbers either to school choice or to receiving supplemental educational services options. Should Congress reauthorize NCLB, the authors recommend that it consider making the following changes to the law: promote more-uniform academic standards and teacher qualification requirements across states, set more-appropriate improvement targets, broaden the measures of student learning beyond multiple-choice tests in reading and mathematics to include more subjects and tests of higher-thinking and problem-solving skills, focus improvement efforts on all schools while continuing to offer parental choice, and provide incentives for highly qualified teachers to teach in low-performing schools.

Source: RAND Corporation

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U.S. Initiatives to Promote Global Internet Freedom: Issues, Policy, and Technology

Online Summary:

Modern means of communications, led by the Internet, provide a relatively inexpensive, open, easy-entry means of sharing ideas, information, pictures, and text around the world. In a political and human rights context, in closed societies when the more established, formal news media is denied access to or does not report on specified news events, the Internet has become an alternative source of media, and sometimes a means to organize politically. The openness and the freedom of expression allowed through blogs, social networks, video sharing sites, and other tools of today's communications technology has proven to be an unprecedented and often disruptive force in some closed societies. Governments that seek to maintain their authority and control the ideas and information their citizens receive are often caught in a dilemma: they feel that they need access to the Internet to participate in commerce in the global market and for economic growth and technological development, but fear that allowing open access to the Internet potentially weakens their control over their citizens. Legislation now under consideration in the 111th Congress would mandate that U.S. companies selling Internet technologies and services to repressive countries take actions to combat censorship and protect personally identifiable information. Some believe, however, that technology can offer a complementary and, in some cases, better and more easily implemented solution to some of those issues. They argue that hardware and Internet services, in and of themselves, are neutral elements of the Internet; it is how they are implemented by various countries that is repressive. Also, Internet services are often tailored for deployment to specific countries; however, such tailoring is done to bring the company in line with the laws of that country, not with the intention of allowing the country to repress and censor its citizenry. In many cases, that tailoring would not raise many questions about free speech and political repression. This report provides information regarding the role of U.S. and other foreign companies in facilitating Internet censorship by repressive regimes overseas. The report is divided into several sections: • Examination of repressive policies in China and Iran, • Relevant U.S. laws, • U.S. policies to promote Internet freedom, • Private sector initiatives, and • Congressional action. Two appendixes describe technologies and mechanisms for censorship and circumvention of government restrictions.

Source: Congressional Research Service


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Diverging family structure and “rational” behavior: The decline in marriage as a disorder of choice

The past fifty years have witnessed a growing divergence in family structure by social class, income, education, and race. The goal is to explain why significant segments of the population are moving away from the traditional patterns of family and reproduction. Most demographers acknowledge that external and material constraints fail to account for most of the present dispersion by class and race in marriage, divorce, and patterns of childbearing. Nor do these factors explain the widening of disparities over time. In attempting to improve on prior theories, this paper proposes a different explanation for these developments. It argues that demographic trends can best be explained as the product of growing differences in styles of thinking about partner choice and reproductive behavior. Drawing on the work of psychologists Richard Herrnstein and Gene Heyman, the paper presents a model that contrasts two distinct types of “rational” choice: “global” and “local.” It then demonstrates that average disparities by race and class in the adoption of local or global decisionmaking methods can account for the significant demographic variations now observed in rates of marriage, divorce, and out of wedlock childbearing. The paper then suggests that this diversity emerged in the wake of the normative deregulation of the sexual revolution. The demise of strong heuristic mores and institutional constraints, and the rise of individualism, facilitated the development of contrasting decisionmaking styles in intimate relations.


Source: Scholarship at Penn Law [via NELLCO Legal Scholarship Repository]

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How Insurgencies End

This study tested conventional wisdom about how insurgencies end against the evidence from 89 insurgencies. It compares a quantitative and qualitative analysis of 89 insurgency case studies with lessons from insurgency and counterinsurgency (COIN) literature. While no two insurgencies are the same, the authors find that modern insurgencies last about ten years and that a government's chances of winning may increase slightly over time. Insurgencies are suited to hierarchical organization and rural terrain, and sanctuary is vital to insurgents. Insurgent use of terrorism often backfires, and withdrawal of state sponsorship can cripple an insurgency, typically leading to its defeat. Inconsistent support to either side generally presages defeat for that side, although weak insurgencies can still win. Anocracies (pseudodemocracies) rarely succeed against insurgencies. Historically derived force ratios are neither accurate nor predictive, and civil defense forces are very useful for both sides. Key indicators of possible trends and tipping points in an insurgency include changes in desertions, defections, and the flow of information to the COIN effort. The more parties in an insurgency, the more likely it is to have a complex and protracted ending. There are no COIN shortcuts.

Source: RAND Corporation

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Are Adolescents Talking with Their Parents About Sex Before Becoming Sexually Active?

Examines parent-child discussions of sexual behavior. Finds consistency in the timing and content of such discussions; however, many parents and children do not discuss key topics, such as birth control, before adolescents become sexually active.

Source: RAND Corporation

Download full pdf publication | Link to RAND research brief

Academic Salaries : 2009-10 Report on the Economic Status of the Profession

From the online summary:

Rough financial seas had been buffeting many colleges and universities for years before the recession that began in late 2007. Then in mid-September 2008, an economic tsunami crashed into our campuses, challenging our ability to provide the accessible, high-quality education necessary to achieve long-term national goals. As the economy weakened at the end of 2008 and into 2009, college and university presidents, business officers, admissions deans, financial aid directors, faculty, staff, students, and parents wondered whether higher education would find a refuge from the worst of the storm, as it had in prior recessions.

Eighteen months later we have some of the data needed to answer this question, and the answer is a resounding “no!” Current budgetary woes result less from rising costs than from reductions in revenue from virtually all sources. Even so, this year’s report reveals tremendous differences in the nature of budgetary woes across institutions. But what holds true among the roughly thirty five hundred colleges and universities across the country is that faculty members are on the front lines interacting with students in the classroom, in the laboratory, in the studio, on the stage, and in the field. Because of the importance of our work in determining “how well we educate our children,” to quote President Obama, it is essential that professors play a meaningful role in identifying measures for dealing with financial difficulties, so that the impact of cuts on the fundamental elements of our academic institutions is limited. Moreover, faculty members must continue to contribute to decision making as our institutions chart their course for a return to normalcy.

Source: American Association of University Professors

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Nearly a Quarter of All Unemployed Americans Jobless For a Year or More – A Post-War High

From Press Release:

Twenty-three percent of America’s unemployed have been jobless for a year or longer, the highest rate since World War II, according to a study released today by the Pew Economic Policy Group. The report, A Year or More: The High Cost of Long-Term Unemployment, finds that this trend cuts across nearly every industry and occupation, and affects people of all ages and educational backgrounds. The existence of such a large pool of people – 3.4 million – who have been out of work for so long has had a significant impact on the federal budget.

Source: Pew Fiscal Analysis Initiative, a program of Pew Economic Policy Group

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Assessing the Impact of Education and Marriage on Labor Market Exit Decisions of Women

During the late 1990s, the convergence of women's labor force participation rates to men's rates came to a halt. This paper explores the degree to which the role of education and marriage in women's labor supply decisions also changed over this time period. Specifically, this paper investigates women's decisions to exit the labor market upon the birth of a child. The results indicate that changing exit behavior among married, educated women at this period in their lives was not likely the driving force behind the aggregate changes seen in labor force participation. Rather, changes in exit rates among single women, particularly those less educated, are much more consistent with the changing pattern of aggregate female labor force participation.

Source: Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta

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The New Consumer Behavior Paradigm: Permanent or Fleeting?

As outlined in the report, shoppers will be more deliberate and purposeful in their spending, as conspicuous consumption will give way to more conscious or practical consumerism. Rampant deal-seeking will be replaced by more purchase selectivity and the use of shopping techniques and tools discovered during the recession. Additionally, the affluent segment of Generation X and the young Generation Y will lead spending in the recovery.

Source Price Waterhouse Coopers

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Digest of Education Statistics, 2009

The 45th in a series of publications initiated in 1962, the Digest's primary purpose is to provide a compilation of statistical information covering the broad field of American education from prekindergarten through graduate school. The Digest contains data on a variety of topics, including the number of schools and colleges, teachers, enrollments, and graduates, in addition to educational attainment, finances, and federal funds for education, libraries, and international comparisons.

Source: National Center for Education Statistics

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Trends in the Use of School Choice

This report uses data from the National Household Surveys Program (NHES) to present trends that focus on the use of and users of public schools (assigned and chosen), private schools (church- and non church-related), charter schools, and homeschoolers between 1993 and 2007.

Source: National Center for Education Statistics

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U.S. Birth Rate Decline Linked to Recession

Birth rates in the United States began to decline in 2008 after rising to their highest level in two decades, and the decrease appears to be linked to the recession, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of state fertility and economic data.

This analysis is based on data from the 25 states for which final 2008 birth numbers are available. State-level indicators were used because the magnitude and timing of the recent economic decline varies from state to state, thus allowing a more nuanced analysis of links with fertility than is possible at the national level.

In 22 of these 25 states, the birth rate — the share of women of childbearing age who gave birth — declined or leveled off in 2008, compared with the previous year. In 20 of the 25 states, the number of births declined or leveled off from the previous year.

The analysis suggests that the falloff in fertility coincides with deteriorating economic conditions. There is a strong association between the magnitude of fertility change in 2008 across states and key economic indicators including changes in per capita income, housing prices and share of the working-age population that is employed across states.

Source: Pew Research Center

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War Bonds in the Second World War: A Model for a New Iraq/Afghanistan War Bond?

The high costs of fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have rekindled congressional interest in the concept of the sale of a Treasury security to help finance these war costs. In the 111th Congress, three bills have been introduced that would permit the issuance of a war bond: S. 2846, H.R. 4315, and H.R. 4385. Although these bills are silent on any relationship between the proposed "war bonds" and World War II-era war bonds, the question has been raised whether or not the issuance of war bonds during the Second World War serves as a good model for a new "war bond." During the Second World War, war bonds were sold to help finance the cost of national defense. War bonds were simply a new name for already existing U.S. savings bonds. War bonds were aggressively marketed through well organized campaigns, which appealed to citizens' sense of patriotism. Their primary purpose was to reduce consumer spending in order to lessen inflationary pressures and black market activity. Also, campaigns to sell war bonds were intended to raise morale by creating a sense of participation in the war effort. The sale of war bonds did reduce consumer spending. Current economic and financial conditions differ from those of the early 1940s. During the Second World War, high inflation and over-employment prevailed. The federal government imposed price and wage controls, production controls, rationing, controls on the level of interest rates on Treasury securities, and regulations on installment loans. As mentioned previously, war bonds were marketed primarily to reduce consumer spending. Today, despite concern about a personal savings rate below historical norms, most federal officials are more concerned about raising consumer spending, because of high unemployment and inadequate aggregate demand. To date, no savings bond or any other Treasury security issue has ever had its funds earmarked for any specific purpose; rather, all funds raised have been placed in the general fund. In summary, the prior war bonds program in the Second World War is a problematic model for Iraq/Afghanistan "war bonds."

Source: Congressional Research Service

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Criminalization Tensions: Empirical Desert, Changing Norms & Rape Reform

Abstract:

This short Article is part of the organizers’ larger Criminalization Project, which seeks, among other things, to develop theories for how criminalization decisions should be made. The argument presented here is that there is instrumentalist, as well as deontological, value in having criminalization decisions that generally track the community’s judgments about what is sufficiently condemnable to be criminal, but that there are also good reasons to deviate from community views. Interestingly, those in the business of social reform may be the ones with the greatest stake in normally tracking community views, in order to avoid community perceptions of the criminal law as regularly or intentionally doing injustice. By building the criminal law’s moral credibility, the law can earn “credibility chips” that the social reformer then has available to “spend” when the criminal law is needed to help change existing norms. The strategic dilemmas of a rape reformer are used as a case study to demonstrate the complexities of the calculations.

Author: Robinson, Paul H. Source: Scholarship at Penn Law. Paper 317.

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